By Tony Rennell


The madman dreamed of the destruction of New York.

In his mind’s eye, he saw an apocalyptic scene of skyscrapers blazing like giant torches, buildings collapsing, and terrified people running in panic, all faith in their impregnability shattered, their gods of capitalism and democracy unable to save them.

This could well be the sort of the demonic vision that drove Osama bin Laden and his 9/11 plotters to the suicide assault on the Twin Towers in 2001. Yet more than half a century before them, another fanatic revelled in that same fantasy — Adolf Hitler.



Though the object of the Fuhrer’s hate was 4,000 miles from Berlin, he demanded that his scientists and engineers find ways to reach it with bombs and wreak the havoc he craved.

The schemes they came up with — including suicide planes that would dive into the heart of Manhattan causing mass death and destruction — are eerily prescient of 9/11.

They never came close to succeeding, but the intensity with which they were pursued over the best part of a decade and even as Hitler’s Reich was collapsing around him is startling.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2522904/Adolf-Hitler-set-Manhattan-ablaze-56-years-Al-Qaeda.html#ixzz2nNOwHSNY